Thursday, January 25, 2018

The Doomsday Clock: Now Moved To Two Minutes To Midnight

Today The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists moved the "Doomsday Clock" 30 seconds closer to midnight then it had been one year ago. As I noted at that time (Jan.. 26 blog post):

This morning at 10:00 Eastern time, in news that ought to send chills down ever citizen's spine, The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists moved the second hand of the Doomsday Clock another half minute closer to midnight. Hitherto it had been set at 3 minutes to midnight, since 2015. The new setting marks metaphorically the acknowledgement of the highest danger facing the planet since 1953, when the U.S. and U.S.S.R. conducted multiple H-bomb tests in the atmosphere.
A global failure to fight climate change and concern over Donald Trump’s cabinet picks were cited as reasons for the increased threat to the planet.

For background reference, the group was founded in 1945 by University of Chicago scientists who helped develop the first atomic weapons as commissioned by the Manhattan Project. Two years later the "Doomsday clock" was created using the imagery of a clock striking midnight (translated into apocalypse) and the contemporary idiom of a nuclear explosion to convey threats to humanity and the planet. The decision to move (or to leave in place) the minute hand of the Doomsday Clock is made every year by the Bulletin’s Science and Security Board in consultation with its Board of Sponsors, which includes 15 Nobel laureates. The Clock has become a universally recognized indicator of the world’s vulnerability to catastrophe from nuclear weapons, climate change, and new technologies emerging in other domains.Each year the basis for moving the minute hand is given in an accompanying statement. This year's statement is given below:

To: Leaders and citizens
of the worldRe: Two minutes to midnightDate: January 25, 2018:

In 2017, world leaders
failed to respond effectively to the looming threats of nuclear war and climate
change, making the world security situation more dangerous than it was a year
ago—and as dangerous as it has been since World War II.

The greatest risks last year arose in the
nuclear realm. North Korea’s nuclear weapons program made remarkable progress
in 2017, increasing risks to North Korea itself, other countries in the region,
and the United States.Hyperbolic
rhetoric and provocative actions by both sides have increased the possibility
of nuclear war by accident or miscalculation.

But the dangers
brewing on the Korean Peninsula were not the only nuclear risks evident in
2017: The United States and Russia remained at odds, continuing military
exercises along the borders of NATO, undermining the Intermediate-Range Nuclear
Forces Treaty (INF), upgrading their nuclear arsenals, and eschewing arms
control negotiations.

In the Asia-Pacific
region, tensions over the South China Sea have increased, with relations
between the United States and China insufficient to re-establish a stable
security situation.In South Asia,
Pakistan and India have continued to build ever-larger arsenals of nuclear
weapons.

And in the Middle
East, uncertainty about continued US support for the landmark Iranian nuclear
deal adds to a bleak overall picture.

To call the world
nuclear situation dire is to understate the danger—and its immediacy.

On the climate change
front, the danger may seem less immediate, but avoiding catastrophic temperature
increases in the long run requires urgent attention now. Global carbon dioxide
emissions have not yet shown the beginnings of the sustained decline towards
zero that must occur if ever-greater warming is to be avoided. The nations of
the world will have to significantly decrease their greenhouse gas emissions to
keep climate risks manageable, and so far, the global response has fallen far
short of meeting this challenge.

Beyond the nuclear and
climate domains, technological change is disrupting democracies around the
world as states seek and exploit opportunities to use information technologies
as weapons, among them internet-based deception campaigns aimed at undermining
elections and popular confidence in institutions essential to free thought and
global security.

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The Bulletin of the
Atomic Scientists Science and Security Board believes the perilous world
security situation just described would, in itself, justify moving the minute
hand of the Doomsday Clock closer to midnight.

But there has also
been a breakdown in the international order that has been dangerously
exacerbated by recent US actions. In 2017, the United States backed away from
its long-standing leadership role in the world, reducing its commitment to seek
common ground and undermining the overall effort toward solving pressing global
governance challenges. Neither allies nor adversaries have been able to
reliably predict US actions—or understand when US pronouncements are real, and
when they are mere rhetoric. International diplomacy has been reduced to
name-calling, giving it a surreal sense of unreality that makes the world
security situation ever more threatening.

Because of the
extraordinary danger of the current moment, the Science and Security Board
today moves the minute hand of the Doomsday Clock 30 seconds closer to
catastrophe. It is now two minutes to midnight—the closest the Clock has ever
been to Doomsday, and as close as it was in 1953, at the height of the Cold
War.

The Science and
Security Board hopes this resetting of the Clock will be interpreted exactly as
it is meant—as an urgent warning of global danger. The time for world leaders
to address looming nuclear danger and the continuing march of climate change is
long past. The time for the citizens of the world to demand such action is now: #rewindtheDoomsdayClock.

The untenable nuclear
threat. The risk that nuclear
weapons may be used—intentionally or because of miscalculation—grew last year
around the globe.

North Korea has long
defied UN Security Council resolutions to cease its nuclear and ballistic
missile tests, but the acceleration of its tests in 2017 reflects new resolve
to acquire sophisticated nuclear weapons. North Korea has or soon will have
capabilities to match its verbal threats—specifically, a thermonuclear warhead
and a ballistic missile that can carry it to the US mainland. In September,
North Korea tested what experts assess to be a true two-stage thermonuclear
device, and in November, it tested the Hwasong-15 missile, which experts
believe has a range of over 8,000 kilometers. The United States and its allies,
Japan and South Korea, responded with more frequent and larger military
exercises, while China and Russia proposed a freeze by North Korea of nuclear
and missile tests in exchange for a freeze in US exercises.

The failure to secure
a temporary freeze in 2017 was unsurprising to observers of the downward spiral
of nuclear rhetoric between US President Donald Trump and North Korean leader
Kim Jong-un. The failure to rein in North Korea’s nuclear program will
reverberate not just in the Asia-Pacific, as neighboring countries review their
security options, but more widely, as all countries consider the costs and
benefits of the international framework of nonproliferation treaties and
agreements.Nuclear risks have been compounded by US-Russia relations that now feature more conflict than cooperation. Coordination on nuclear risk reduction is all but dead, and no solution to disputes over the INF Treaty—a landmark agreement to rid Europe of medium-range nuclear missiles—is readily apparent. Both sides allege violations, but Russia’s deployment of a new ground-launched cruise missile, if not addressed, could trigger a collapse of the treaty. Such a collapse would make what should have been a relatively easy five-years ago unimaginably more intractable.
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Let's hope that all citizens and leaders pay attention to these threats and seek to turn the hands of this clock backward instead of forward. But we'll have to strive for a rewind despite the news of a leaked Pentagon draft describing additions to the U.S. nuclear arsenal including: 'low yield' (tactical) nukes that can be mounted to Trident submarines and a new submarine launched cruise missile (SLCM). These new weapons are estimated to cost $1.2 trillion over the next 30 years to build and maintain according to the Congressional Budget Office.

About Me

Specialized in space physics and solar physics, developed first astronomy curriculum for Caribbean secondary schools, has written thirteen books - the most recent:Fundamentals of Solar Physics. Also: Modern Physics: Notes, Problems and Solutions;:'Beyond Atheism, Beyond God', Astronomy & Astrophysics: Notes, Problems and Solutions', 'Physics Notes for Advanced Level&#39, Mathematical Excursions in Brane Space, Selected Analyses in Solar Flare Plasma Dynamics; and 'A History of Caribbean Secondary School Astronomy'. It details the background to my development and implementation of the first ever astronomy curriculum for secondary schools in the Caribbean.